6 ms·

Is it really so hard for companies to not do these shitty things? What would the increase in profit be? Does outweigh all the negative PR? Do they even think ab

Is it really so hard for companies to not do these shitty things? What would the increase in profit be? Does outweigh all the negative PR? Do they even think about this? There must be some rationale....

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
matheusmoreira 7y ago
They probably believe used product sales are lost sales. Same rationale they use for spending millions fighting copyright infringement.
andrepd 7y ago
What do you think? Of course they thought about this, they are not stupid. They calculated they would make more money, and that's all they care. They're a corporation after all, no other considerations enter into their thinking, only one: maximising profit.
- matthewmacleod 7y ago
  This is, broadly speaking, the perspective of someone who hasn't had the pleasure of interacting with corporate bureaucracy :) Companies do dumb, expensive stuff all the time. Aside from quite often deliberately doing stuff that doesn't "maximise profit", they also frequently make quite catastrophically bad decisions which accidentally avoid "maximising profit". It's baffling to me that you ascribe such a level of skill and professionalism, when most organisations seems to be accidentally successful!
perceptronas 7y ago
It does not. Probably the decisions are not thought out that well. In the end these things haunt them for years. Look at m$, even after all the years of open sourcing, contributing and etc. they are still not trusted. Few other examples pop to my mind: medium.com, oracle, google (graveyard), ethereum (fork), 2016+ apple keyboards and so on
- tachion 7y ago
  Except that it doesn't really matter and most people in general don't care because they don't know. Say what you want about Microsoft, but the fact is the world runs on Windows and MS Office with exceptions for fraction of macs and some weird geeks running some funny penguin systems. Not only that, but if you're young enough you never had a chance to experience the 'evil Microsoft'. Same goes in similar fashion for other companies you've mentioned: Oracle/Ethereum - what's that? Google - the world runs on it and Gmail. Apple keyboards - 'it works for me' and so on and so forth, sadly.
  - Paianni 7y ago
    I think it's more that actively boycotting companies and their products causes stress that many don't want to bother with, especially when there's no practical alternative. Accepting the norms is less socially confrontational.
  - perceptronas 7y ago
    I do agree with you on general point. However, I don't think reputations are to be dealt in absolutes. I would like to discuss your points one by one: > Microsoft * MS Office is still the best office suite as of today, I don't think anyone would argue. * Windows is still the most 'compatible' and 'easy to use' OS today for non-apple hardware. I don't think penguin system users will argue. This is coming from someone who used linux with breaks for 10~ years. It is still _hard_ to get it working as it was years ago. However, for years I heard many developers refusing to consider anything .NET, MSSQL,... related to be picked for tech stacks due microsoft history and current ecosystem. Money definitely lost on their part > Oracle * Same, tech people refusing to get involved with Oracle due their litigious nature. Money definitely lost > Ethereum * I am not the best person to talk about this and this might not be the example. Fork reduced my trust in cryptos in general as my expectations were different. > Google * Gmail is great email service. On top of that free. Same with Google search. However I would argue that Google new products which "lock you in" will not be as popular because of their abandonment of many services > Apple keyboards * This is more personal, but I saw similar experiences from others. Terrible keyboard, terrible replacement keyboard reduced my trust so much that I moved from their ecosystem. This is on top that components were soldered resulting in non modular expensive laptops (can't replace it myself fast/cheap). Money definitely lost on their part Edit: formatting

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

matheusmoreira 7y ago

They probably believe used product sales are lost sales. Same rationale they use for spending millions fighting copyright infringement.

andrepd 7y ago

What do you think? Of course they thought about this, they are not stupid. They calculated they would make more money, and that's all they care. They're a corporation after all, no other considerations enter into their thinking, only one: maximising profit.

matthewmacleod 7y ago
This is, broadly speaking, the perspective of someone who hasn't had the pleasure of interacting with corporate bureaucracy :) Companies do dumb, expensive stuff all the time. Aside from quite often deliberately doing stuff that doesn't "maximise profit", they also frequently make quite catastrophically bad decisions which accidentally avoid "maximising profit". It's baffling to me that you ascribe such a level of skill and professionalism, when most organisations seems to be accidentally successful!

perceptronas 7y ago

It does not. Probably the decisions are not thought out that well. In the end these things haunt them for years. Look at m$, even after all the years of open sourcing, contributing and etc. they are still not trusted. Few other examples pop to my mind: medium.com, oracle, google (graveyard), ethereum (fork), 2016+ apple keyboards and so on

tachion 7y ago
Except that it doesn't really matter and most people in general don't care because they don't know. Say what you want about Microsoft, but the fact is the world runs on Windows and MS Office with exceptions for fraction of macs and some weird geeks running some funny penguin systems. Not only that, but if you're young enough you never had a chance to experience the 'evil Microsoft'. Same goes in similar fashion for other companies you've mentioned: Oracle/Ethereum - what's that? Google - the world runs on it and Gmail. Apple keyboards - 'it works for me' and so on and so forth, sadly.
- Paianni 7y ago
  I think it's more that actively boycotting companies and their products causes stress that many don't want to bother with, especially when there's no practical alternative. Accepting the norms is less socially confrontational.
- perceptronas 7y ago
  I do agree with you on general point. However, I don't think reputations are to be dealt in absolutes. I would like to discuss your points one by one: > Microsoft * MS Office is still the best office suite as of today, I don't think anyone would argue. * Windows is still the most 'compatible' and 'easy to use' OS today for non-apple hardware. I don't think penguin system users will argue. This is coming from someone who used linux with breaks for 10~ years. It is still _hard_ to get it working as it was years ago. However, for years I heard many developers refusing to consider anything .NET, MSSQL,... related to be picked for tech stacks due microsoft history and current ecosystem. Money definitely lost on their part > Oracle * Same, tech people refusing to get involved with Oracle due their litigious nature. Money definitely lost > Ethereum * I am not the best person to talk about this and this might not be the example. Fork reduced my trust in cryptos in general as my expectations were different. > Google * Gmail is great email service. On top of that free. Same with Google search. However I would argue that Google new products which "lock you in" will not be as popular because of their abandonment of many services > Apple keyboards * This is more personal, but I saw similar experiences from others. Terrible keyboard, terrible replacement keyboard reduced my trust so much that I moved from their ecosystem. This is on top that components were soldered resulting in non modular expensive laptops (can't replace it myself fast/cheap). Money definitely lost on their part Edit: formatting